Editorial: Increase in Price of Fuel

There's not much we can do about it for the moment. We have to pay more for petroleum products. Yesterday, reacting to our story on "Oil tops $72", the Executive Secretary of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) announced that the price of petroleum products would be adjusted upwards in the coming days to reflect the current world prices.

We wish we could say don't do it, but sadly we can't because that's the reality. Ghana is not an oil producing country and so any slight jump in world price for the product also puts a squeeze on the country's economy and we have to adjust accordingly or face economic collapse. The energy market globally is in turmoil and so far there's no sign of a let up. Ghanaians would have to brace up for the obvious price hikes the NPA would have no alternative but to announce.

Talking of alternatives, isn't it about time that we started working on alternatives to petroleum products? Some plants, like jetropha, we are told hold great promise. Even good old sugarcane can be processed to run certain kinds of engines. Palm oil has long been experimented upon and found to be suitable for diesel engines.

Even the oil addicts of the US, have been told by their president, a former oil man himself, to reduce their addiction and look for alternatives. We wish to appeal to our own president to set up a top-level panel of Ghanaian scientists to come out with viable energy sources for us to exploit in the coming decades.